DE Seminar: Meghan Kwon and Julia Neylan
Undergraduate Students
Location
Mathematics/Psychology : 401
Date & Time
May 13, 2024, 11:00 am – 12:00 pm
Description
Title: A Mathematical Model for Clustered Cell Migration
Speaker: Meghan Kwon
Abstract: Clustered cell migration is a crucial biological process involved in oocyte development, tissue healing, and cancer metastasis. We specifically investigated this process in the Drosophila melanogaster during egg development, in which a group of migrating cells, called border cells, move as a cluster from the anterior side of the egg chamber to the posterior side, where the oocyte resides. We represented each cell through boundary points, which are two-dimensional cartesian coordinates. We developed mathematical representations of the various intra- and intercellular forces within the D. melanogaster, and applied each of these forces to the boundary points of the cells with the use of differential equations. We conducted parameter testing of our model with an initial planar implementation, in which we varied one parameter to obtain viable ranges for each parameter. Then, we used a Latin Hypercube Sampling (LHS) method to investigate the force-balance sensitivity of our system. To do so, we used the High Performance Computing Facility (HPCF) at UMBC to run parallel simulations with each set of parameters generated using the LHS method.
Title: Defining Cell Boundaries in Fruit Fly Egg Chambers: 2D and 3D Image Data
Speaker: Julia Neylan
Abstract: Cell migration is essential for various biological mechanisms such as wound healing and cancer metastasis. An experimental model for this phenomenon is the Drosophila melanogaster, where a cluster of cells migrates through the egg chamber during oocyte development. We seek to accurately rebuild the geometry of this model in three dimensions to be then used to simulate cell migration in Matlab. Using high-resolution microscopy, we have acquired a series of 2D images of the egg chamber which are then used to construct a 3D model through automatic rendering. The reconstruction can then be brought into MAYA where non-realistic holes can be filled in and patched. Afterward, the geometry can be imported into Matlab where we worked to automate the process to have individual matrices of points for each cell. We created a function that takes in the entire chamber and returns individual matrices with the coordinates of the boundary of each cell in three dimensions. We seek to systematize this process so any chamber can be taken from microscopy slides to be used in Matlab for a simulation. This will assist in creating a simulation including that for chemoattractant dynamics in two and three dimensions.
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